Page 93 of Marrying the Nanny

“Mom.” His voice was even and cool. “Calm down and let’s talk this out.”

“I don’t want to calm down! I’m allowed to be angry when my own son betrays me!” She was moving with distress, arms flinging out. “And you’re marrying his nanny? For God’s sake, Reid, she probably slept with him. Do you realize that?”

“She didn’t. I know that.”

“Should I call Velma?” Olive murmured.

Reid sent her a jerky nod.

“I don’t need Velma! I’m allowed to be angry! She’s lying to you and thinks she can take you. Is this for the money? I bought that godforsaken place.” Miriam charged over to confront Emma again, pointing at her own chest. “I get that money, not you.”

This was more than anger. It was vituperous hysteria that caused a fight-or-flight rush to sting through Emma’s arteries. The only thing keeping her from panic was Olive’s and Reid’s overcompensating calm.

“It’s not about the money. I promise you,” Emma said faintly.

Reid turned a look on her that was tight-lipped, as though he preferred she didn’t engage, but Emma couldn’t help feeling partly responsible for Miriam’s reaction.

“I can’t have babies,” she blurted. “Reid’s giving me a chance to have a family. That’s why he’s doing it. So I can raise Storm. He’ll always be here for you.”

“He is never here for me,” Miriam spat with anguished fury.

“Em, take the keys and go back to the hotel.” Reid nodded to where he’d left the fob on the table at the door.

She instantly felt blamed, but as she looked into his closed expression, she glimpsed agony. Embarrassment and frustrated helplessness. It made her want to stay and be here for him.

“I’ll meet you there later,” he promised, voice cool and hollow.

“I’ve never driven on this side,” she said with apology.

“I’ll take her,” Olive said, coming back from the kitchen with a fresh smile of optimism. “Velma is on her way.”

“I don’t want Velma. I don’t need an intervention. You always do this. You gang up on me. It’s not fair.”

“Come on, dear.” Olive set a kind but firm hand on Emma’s arm. “Miriam needs time to process. She and Reid will sort through this.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Emma berated herself as she followed Olive across the lawn.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say. Miriam struggles with any sort of change. I’ve seen her exactly that angry when her television program was preempted by hockey overtime. She’ll calm eventually and come around. I need to pop in and fetch my keys, tell my husband where I’m going.”

Emma stood beside the late model blue sedan.

When Olive came out, she said, “This is the driver’s side, dear.”

“I’m so sorry. My head is…” With Reid. With Storm. With the precariousness of her situation.

She walked around and climbed into the other side. Olive asked her which hotel as she pulled from the drive. Emma blanked, then pulled out her key card and showed Olive.

“The Empress.” Olive smiled. “I should have known Reid would treat you right. Are you really marrying him because you can’t have babies?”

“Yes. No. I mean…” She had no idea if she should be this forthright, but the things she wished she could say to Miriam came out of her. “I love Storm. Marrying Reid started out as a way for me to stay in her life, but Reid is a really good person. This is absolutely not about the money. I had money. Not a lot, but enough that everyone I know thinks I was a flaming idiot for divorcing my husband and moving to the end of the earth to look after a stranger’s baby. Which was a semi-irrational move, but it brought me into meeting Reid, and I’m starting to think he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Aside from Storm,” she added sheepishly. “They’re tied.”

“He is a good man,” Olive agreed. “Miriam is a handful and I freely admit that my friendship with her developed out of concern for him as a boy.”

“You’ve known them a long time?”

“We’ve been neighbors since before Reid went to Raven’s Cove. He stayed with us the first night after Miriam overdosed. Reid came home from school and found her on the floor, called 9-1-1 himself.”

“I didn’t know he found her.”

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